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| * Best to check both ways . . . . |
BAD-tempered horses, frightened pensioners and high-speed
trains. Just three of the hazards you don’t expect on a gentle run across the
Essex countryside.
All I had planned for Sunday morning was a quiet
test-run for my latest injury; a very low-key reconnoitre of my allocated stage
on the forthcoming Essex Way Relay. ‘Reconnoitre’ is a tricky word to say, let alone
spell, so luckily my clubmate Tina has introduced a new term for us to use: ‘Rekki’.
When gingerly doing a ‘rekki’ with a sore ankle, you probably
don’t need your run to be incident-packed. On the other hand, when things start
kicking off you do tend to forget about the wretched injury, which might actually
be helpful.
Anyway, Stage 8 of the Relay is an eight-mile jaunt
from chocolate-box village Dedham, past the magnificent folly of Mistley Tower,
and up to Bradfield. They give you written route instructions, but you can also
look for the little red poppy motifs that are pinned to signposts. My former
neighbour Germaine Greer led the campaign to make the poppy the official flower
of Essex, so in her honour I like to look for these signs rather than fiddle
with paperwork.
With my injury-hit lower legs encased in enough
strapping and medical gear to supply a small hospital, I bade farewell to the silent
occupants of Dedham cemetery recalling the instructions to turn left after finding
the “red dog loo”. The first hazard
presented itself less than 400 metres away. It was nothing to do with my injury,
or canine toileting, but a big sign that warned: “Don’t touch the horses – strangles
has been found in this area.”
Strangles is apparently a nasty contagious disease
that can give horses a scabby face, runny nose and depression. And guess what was blocking my path to a kissing
gate? A large scabby-faced nag, face covered in flies and looking thoroughly depressed
with life.
To use the gate without touching him would have been
impossible, so I vaulted a barbed wire fence further along, at which point I spotted
an elderly couple cowering to the rear of the horse, desperately wondering how
to get through the gate in one piece. I heroically tried to entice the horse towards
me, to allow them free passage, but it failed to work. Depressed horses tend not to do what you ask.
Eventually the old folk scurried off to another corner
of the field to find a different road to freedom. Let’s hope they were successful
and found their way back to Dedham and a nice tea shop with a free table
inside. When you’re old and shaky, a cup of tea will usually sort you out (so I’ve
been told).
As the miles ticked slowly by I found my troublesome Achilles
was coping better than expected. This was due, I presume, to the Incrediwear
sock support recommended to me, which was snugly encasing the affected area. It’s made of bamboo charcoal and germanium, which
sound bizarre ingredients to find in a sock, but there you go.
This magic sock helped speed me onwards and I galloped
like a horse without strangles as I came upon the grassy slope which takes you
down and over a railway line. I reached the safety of the other side just seconds
before the 12.32 from Liverpool Street to Manningtree thundered by. You have to keep your wits about you on the Essex
Way.
My truncated ‘rekki’ of Stage 8 ended as planned beside
an ice-cream van on the banks of the River Stour. I’d swerved all the diseased horses, electric
fences and speeding trains, and, what’s more, the injury felt OK. It was time
to spend my lottery winnings of the previous day (£10 of your British pounds)
in quiet celebration.
Talking of celebrations, a remarkable tale has emerged
from the running club down the A12, our friends Springfield Striders.
A few days ago their chairman Kevin received a phone call from a stranger hundreds of miles away
who’d found a camera beside a road somewhere in Hampshire. He’d examined its contents
and found pictures of a woman giving birth and of a man running along in a Springfield
vest (not in the same shot, I hasten to add!).
The pictures looked rather intimate and precious, so he
took the trouble to track down Springfield and its chairman to see if they had clues
as to the camera’s owner. Now our Kevin
is well known as a man who loves to see fellow runners suffer in the ditches and
rivers of Essex, but this weekend he proved he actually has a heart of gold. He
dropped everything and quickly posted news of his phone-call on social media in
an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Within mere minutes his message was seen by Simon, a fellow
Striders runner. Simon has a Hampshire-based brother, recently did a race down
there in his club vest, and his sister-in-law recently gave birth. Bingo. Job
done!
It was a positive result for social media, and also a
good advert for always wearing your club vest when running on foreign soil . .
. .
* Rob Hadgraft’s five published books on
running are now available as e-books for Kindle at just £4.99 each, in addition
to paperback format. Use this link: Rob Hadgraft's running books on
Amazon or, alternatively: www.robhadgraft.com
